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For a full-time developer, I agree with the OP insofar as Linux and Mac are largely interchangeable. I develop on Linux and love it.

The biggest exception is for anyone involved in graphics, front-end development, or often works with graphic designers. The lack of native installation of Photoshop and Illustrator wrecks it.

That's what largely spurred my decision to buy a Mac. There's only one OS that currently offers a Unix CLI with native Adobe Creative Suite installation. If Adobe ever offers native CS on Linux, I'll be Linux for life.



Or anyone making music, or editing video. The commercial offerings in those areas still far outstrip anything available on Linux.


Would that explain why Linux is used to develop so many special effects in Movies, not Windows?


Video editing and modeling/rendering effects are completely different toolchains. Tools for the former are still very crude compared to what's available on Mac/PC. Support for the latter is good on Linux, probably thanks in large part to the Unix legacy imparted to the effects industry by SGI.

But a lot of the Linux machines you see in VFX shops are just headless render nodes. People doing the creative work often use Macs or PCs.


Those Linux machines are mostly used as render-farms, i.e dumb boxes to crunch numbers.

You'd have to get their Mac (or sometimes Windows) machine out of the special effects guys cold, dead, fingers.

That said, there are a few commercial offerings for 3D modeling work on Linux, but shockingly less than in Windows/Mac land.




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